ABA Targets Bush’s Signing Statement Shenanigans

This is very interesting indeed. The American Bar Association’s board president has proposed a task force to review the 750 laws enacted and hence systematically ignored, and often completely undermined, by Bush, with the use of presidential signing statements, since he took office. Saturday, the board of governors unanimously voted to proceed with an investigation, led by a bipartisan “all-star legal panel,” which would seek to determine whether Bush’s signing statements violate Constitutional law.

They include a former federal appeals court chief judge, a former FBI director, and several prominent scholars -- to evaluate Bush's assertions that he has the power to ignore laws that conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution…

Bush has challenged more laws than all previous presidents combined.

The ABA's president, Michael Greco, said in an interview that he proposed the task force because he believes the scope and aggressiveness of Bush's signing statements may raise serious constitutional concerns. He said the ABA, which has more than 400,000 members, has a duty to speak out about such legal issues to the public, the courts, and Congress.

“The American Bar Association feels a very serious obligation to ensure that when there are legal issues that affect the American people, the ABA adopts a policy regarding such issues and then speaks out about it," Greco said. “In this instance, the president's practice of attaching signing statements to laws squarely presents a constitutional issue about the separation of powers among the three branches."
Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and inveterate party hack Arlen Specter promised to hold hearings on the signing statements after the Globe’s original report back in April about the 750 violated laws, but since, as usual, his sad ass continues to drag, the ABA has stepped up to the plate. Perhaps they’ll manage to get something done, since our stinking cesspool of a GOP-led Congress can’t be arsed to give a shit about the Constitution—aside from trying to use it to codify discrimination against a large swath of the American populace whose great sin is being the most useful wedge issue the GOP has these days to distract struggling Americans from the realities of their pathetic, low-wage, no-healthcare, high-gas cost, crumbling-infrastructure, fucked-environment lives.

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